Will professional credentialing and immigration systems recognize training and experience of health care workers from abroad or will these workers be chanelled into lower-skilled work? How will foreign migrants be accepted to provide care for seniors? These questions are central for Japan, the case examined in this paper. To encourage women's participation in the labour force while expanding the supply of paid care workers for seniors, new options for accepting foreign migrant care workers are now on the table. Potential changes involve migration regulations and licensing standards. This paper will explore how stakeholders approach these options. It will highlight contradictions among policy objectives, some that prioritize skilled care and others that encourage a deskilling of care workers.
